Airfield (Red Alert 1)

Airfield
Structure
Internal ID	AFLD
Faction	Allied Forces (campaign only) Soviet Union
Role	Aircraft production and rearming
Tier	2
Tech level	5
Properties
Hit points	1000
Armor type	Heavy
Production
Cost	$600
Produced by	Construction yard
Requires	Radar dome
Combat
Sight range	7
Function
Power	-30
Produces	See § Production
Abilities	See § Support powers

The Airfield is an invaluable structure for the air-inclined Soviet commander in Red Alert.

Background

“

The Airfield allows construction of MIG and Yak planes, and allows access to Paratroopers, Parachute bombs, and Spy Planes. Only one plane is allowed per Airfield that has been constructed. If an in-use Airfield is destroyed while its associated plane is still in the air, the plane will crash. - Red Alert manual(src)

”

The Airfield is a landing strip with a flight control tower that contains an armory as well as a fuel dump. It is used to maintain aircraft that require a runway in order to land: Yak attack planes and MiG fighter jets. The airfield is only able to perform reload and refuel functions, as repairing functions are instead done by specially constructed repair centers.

During the First Tiberium War, Nod dusted off the old design of the Airfield from Soviet archives and added various modifications that virtually changed its role to that of a vehicle drop off for their contracted transport planes, creating the Nod Airstrip. In the Red Alert Universe, it was abandoned due to the forced disbanding of Soviet air force after the war, but brought back in Red Alert 3 to maintain MiGs, Kirovs and Twinblades.

Game building

Apart from supporting a single attack plane and reload their weapons after each attack, the airfield also allows for calling in paratroopers or parabombs aboard the Badger bombers. If an in-use Airfield is destroyed while its associated plane is still in the air, the plane will crash. It also provides the spy plane support power.

It should be noted that reload times for aircraft on an Airfield or Helipad is dependent on the number of rounds of ammunition the aircraft carries. The Soviet MiG, with three missiles, can reload on an airfield almost instantaneously. The Allied Longbow, with six missiles, can similarly rearm fairly quickly. The Hind and Yak however, which carry 12 and 15 bursts of machine gun fire, take much longer to rearm despite the fact that each individual shot from their weapons does is less powerful than the missiles used by the MiG and Longbow.

When a spy infiltrates the airfield, the owner of the spy is granted single-use parabombs.

Production

Yak Anti-infantry attack plane, undetectable by radar unless grounded

MiG Anti-armor fighter-bomber, undetectable by radar unless grounded

Support powers

Paratroopers Calls a Badger transport to drop five Rifle Infantry at a selected area over the battlefield

Parabombs Calls a Badger bomber to drop five bombs at a selected area over the battlefield

Spy plane Calls a spy plane to reveal shroud at a selected area over the battlefield

Gallery

Cameos

DOS	English	French	German

See also

• Airstrip (Tiberian Dawn), shares the icon image